by Lorna George
Watching him sleep, keeping guard over the few trees that housed the sleeping Korenians, she couldn’t help but feel responsible. She had to get him back to his country alive. Esta and Rayan had been kind to her, and Naomi knew that it was the least she could do to make sure Arun, their cousin and King, was safe. It would be hard on him, and he seemed to be directing all of his anger for their loss at her personally, but she didn’t mind. She knew from experience that anger was easier to deal with than sorrow.
It wasn’t impossible that they had escaped whatever had kept them from returning, and she wasn’t about to give up hope, but even if they had, making their way through the forest wasn’t going to be easy. So far they had kept to the lesser roads, but with Cygnus’ monsters hunting them down the safest route was through the heavily wooded areas of Ffion. Arun and the remaining soldiers were going to struggle, and they had the benefit of a knowledgeable guide. She could only pray that Rayan had taken her warnings seriously and had some kind of basic idea of how dangerous the forest really was.
She was going to take them through the darkest parts of the woods, knowing it would make tracking them next to impossible for harpies or otherwise. The trees would be dense, making flight completely futile, and the denser the trees, the stronger the scent of damp and leaf-mould, which would hide a great deal of their trail even from noses as sensitive as she knew the harpies possessed. Depending on how quickly they moved, she guessed they could be at Pearpetal in about five days or so. Less if they didn’t run into trouble from the creatures that made their home in the deep forest.
Leaning back against the branch behind her, legs crossed and fingers lightly drumming against her knees, Naomi took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She was exhausted, but didn’t want to sleep. Unlike last night, it seemed Arun had forgotten to cut off her connection to his magic, leaving her active far longer than she would be otherwise. After the past few days, she could tell it wasn’t a healthy way to go on, but for now she was content to use any means at her disposal to keep going. For now all thoughts of escape were pushed to the back of her mind, surviving her only concern. If the magic, however much of an inconvenience before, was going to help her, then she wasn’t going to ignore it. She could already feel the Bond spell working its way through her body, healing the years of neglect, the wasted muscles and weakened bones; doing in days what nature would have taken weeks to accomplish.
Arun had very pointedly removed all weapons from her reach once again, and while she didn’t require his good opinion, if they were going to get out of Ffion in one piece she needed him to trust her. Still, with some of her own strength returning, and after the fight only hours before, she was desperate to get some sword practice and see how much she remembered. Her aim with the bow had been adequate, but not nearly as sharp as it had been before. It made her worry for the rest of her skills. Looking over the sleeping platform to the ground below, she tried to gauge the distance.
‘I hope you’re not thinking of escape.’ Arun’s voice interrupted her musings, and she turned to see he hadn’t moved at all. He was laying with his back to her, completely motionless, and she was both surprised and impressed that he had managed to make her think he had been sleeping deeply.
‘I was just wondering if I had enough room to get down and run through a few sword drills,’ she admitted, keeping her voice low. ‘I’m afraid I’ve become rusty.’
He rolled over onto his back and looked at her quizzically, disbelief apparent in his expression. ‘You consider yourself rusty?’
Naomi was secretly pleased by his reaction, a pride in herself she hadn’t felt in years coming to the fore. She supposed that to him any woman who could hold a weapon without injuring herself must be some kind of novelty, but she was still proud. It wasn’t that female knightss and soldiers in Ffion were in abundance, of course. She had fought hard for respect from the men in her regiment, and even then they still seemed only able to cope with it by treating her as “one of the boys” as opposed to a female doing a job just as well as a male. Some of them had only swallowed her presence because of her father, but she liked to think that she had proved herself enough that eventually even those that disapproved and disliked her still would do as she ordered without question.
There hadn’t been many women in the ranks back then, but as she had worked her way up and gained a reputation even at her young age, she knew more and more women were choosing to join the military. At least, they had been. She didn’t like to think about the state of things under Adrienne’s rule; the little she had heard about torture, execution and banishment was enough to make her shut it out.
‘Your thoughts wander in dark places, little Firefly,’ Arun sighed quietly. ‘You should sleep.’
‘You too,’ she responded, keeping it simple for fear of speaking sharply about his constant poking about in her mind. Instead, she simply took hold of the magic and raised her defences against him even higher. The corner of his mouth kicked up slightly at that, and despite the darkness, she could see faint amusement twinkle in his peculiar, luminous eyes. She wasn’t sure how good his eyesight was, knowing hers was keen from years of darkness in her underground cell, but he continued to lay on his back, staring up at the leafy canopy.
‘You were singing,’ he said suddenly, and she frowned.
‘No, I wasn’t.’
‘I heard you,’ he assured her, and she could tell he was being truthful. ‘Well, humming, at least. Not a tune I recognise.’
She hadn’t even realised she’d been making any noise at all, much less humming. Still, she did know she had been prone to it as a child, something Master Gerrard had often nudged her into noticing.
‘Your singing wasn’t what was keeping me awake,’ he quickly assured her, sounding contrite. ‘I just wondered what the tune was.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise I was doing it, so I wouldn’t know what the tune was,’ she admitted. ‘My teacher used to say I’d make them up, depending on what the forest sounded like at the time. It was probably just nonsense.’
He smiled again. ‘I see. So you were singing with the forest?’
‘I suppose you could say that, if you wanted to be overly romantic about it.’ Naomi shrugged. Master Gerrard had often joked with her about being a personification of the woods, and in truth she felt so at one with her home, the trees and the creatures, the beauty and danger of it, she found she didn’t mind. Still, it was strange to have a complete stranger begin to think that way.
‘You make it seem so much more beautiful than it truly is, then,’ he continued, sounding suddenly morose. ‘This was my first trip to Ffion, and people have always told me how lovely it is. I’m sorry to say that to me it feels only cold, dark, and harsh.’
It was Naomi’s turn to smile, feeling a little sorry for the dejected look on his face. ‘Well, you aren’t seeing it at its best.’
He didn’t look much like he believed her, and a crazy and potentially dangerous idea popped into her head. It shouldn’t matter to her what he thought of her home, but she knew that so far he really had only seen the very worst. Remembering the state of Chloris castle and the city surrounding it, there toll on the people, livestock, and the buildings had been devastating. The people he had met were all traitors, and even she, while refusing to try to justify her actions, had wronged him terribly for her own benefit. The forest had apparently taken his family from him, and now threatened his own life as well. She felt like he should know there was at least more to that than he believed, no matter the outcome of their fate.
Standing on the small platform, she held out her hand to him. ‘Come with me. I want to show you something.’
He sat up, but looked suspicious. Now filled with mischief and desperate to show him that there was beauty here alongside the danger, she lowered her mental defences enough for him to see that she meant him no harm. He seemed to consider it for a long while, then stood unsteadily beside her and taking her offered hand. She wrapped her fingers around his
, and picking out a likely looking branch, led him over.
‘How is your eyesight? Can you see well enough to climb safely?’ she asked, unable to keep the excitement from her voice. He nodded mutely, and she let go of his hand. ‘Just tread where I tread.’
Careful not to go too quickly, and keeping as quiet as possible, she began to make her way up the tree from branch to branch. She stopped every now and again to look back and make sure Arun wasn’t struggling, but he seemed to be fine, if a little cautious. They would have to be quick, she noted mentally, but harpies slept by night, and so as long as they didn’t linger it would be fine. She was surprised by how much she wanted to share this with Arun, but put it down to a subtle attempt to cheer him up, and a long dormant pride in her home. She didn’t want anyone to think badly of her country, not if she could help it.
Climbing as high as possible before the branches became too weak to support their weight, she couldn’t stop herself from grinning as the view opened out before her. Her heart clenched tightly in her chest and she took a deep breath before moving aside to make room for Arun on the slightly sturdier branch. She reached down and offered her hand once again to help steady him, which he took, and watched his face change from the absorption of climbing to wonder at the sight that met his eyes.
The forest stretched out all around them, a blanket of lush green dusted by moonlight. It carpeted the land until it blended with the night sky in the distance, reaching in a never-ending sphere of velvet up and over their heads until it met back with the edges of the forest again. Stars glittered in the sky, mirroring other lights scattered throughout the woodlands. Keeping her voice barely above a whisper, she pointed to the brighter clusters in the distance.
‘Those are Questing Birds. They say the birds guide lost travellers through the forest sometimes, if your need is great and your heart is righteous,’ she saw the dubious look on his face again, but ignored it, too swept up by the beauty of the view. ‘The smaller lights are probably fairies and nymphs. And the ones that are moving, the greenish ones? Those are Leshii. Unlike the Questing Birds, they lead travellers off their paths, usually with deadly consequences.’
‘It seems that your forest spends an awful lot of time worrying about travellers.’ he muttered.
‘Well, that isn’t surprising,’ Naomi lifted one shoulder in a small shrug. ‘No one likes their privacy being invaded, do they? They don’t want people traipsing about, so it stands to reason there are those that take it upon themselves to get rid of outsiders as quickly as possible.’
Arun continued to look out at the forest and the various displays of light. ‘So it’s a defence mechanism. Whether your method is cruelty or kindness, the object is that I’m no longer a threat.’
He looked at her then, and the hard light in his eyes made her wonder if they were still talking about the forest or not. She frowned and looked back out to the treetops. How could anyone have access to such a view and still be so full of venom?
‘It’s like you want to find fault,’ she answered evasively. ‘Can’t you see that sometimes it takes both good and bad to make something remarkable? Respect peril while appreciating beauty?’
‘Such as?’
Naomi shifted her position slightly and tried to put it into terms he might actually understand. ‘Nothing is perfect unless you accept every facet of it.’
He looked thoughtful for a moment, as though he were entertaining some possible answer, then shook his head very slightly and seemed to release the thought onto the breeze to float away. They sat in silence for a long while, until Naomi began to feel a little cold, and noticed Arun was trying very hard not to shiver.
‘Come on, let’s go back,’ she sighed, climbing down and under where he was perched. ‘We’ve got a long day ahead of us tomorrow. Several more after that. We need to rest.’
*
Genevieve was dying. Her wounds were many and deep, infecting her blood as they festered. Most of the arrows had snapped, making them impossible to remove. It had been agony to drag her mangled body away so that the humans could not finish what they had set out to do and kill her. None of them had come close enough to check if she still lived, believing her already dead. They gave her body a wide berth as they hurried to escape before her sisters found them. Even now with her strength leaving her, unable to fly, unable to hunt, she refused to die in this pitiful manner. She would take her revenge, she swore it, and feast upon the blood of the small warrior her Master coveted.
The small warrior with eyes of shattered glass, and who was wrapped in the scent of death and torment. She had seen her, smelled her. She would die by her claws, she swore it; no matter her broken wings and life-force were still leaking from her onto the leaf-scattered ground. They were not far, she could smell them. If only she could fly, she could catch her prey easily. Her talons pierced the soft ground and she bared her sharp teeth, imagining it was not soil, but the flesh of the small warrior she clawed.
'Ah, Genevieve, of all three sisters, you are the strongest.' A familiar voice spoke softly, and recognising it, she cawed piteously. 'Hush now, mighty one. The small warrior will die, but you will not be the one to deliver the blow. You ignored my orders, but I will forgive you.’
A powerful shock tore through her body, and opening her razor-filled maw, Genevieve tried to scream. No sound came, and another pulse of energy pierced her. She could not move, but felt something molten hot flow through her body, burning her from the inside even as it threatened to tear her open. It was excruciating, but still she refused to die.
Suddenly it was not the small warrior she craved now. It was the blood of her mate, furious and burning, the heart of a dragon. A heart she would consume while the small warrior watched. Genevieve had seen how she protected the male, knocked him down to keep him back, pulled him away as she charged.
'Yes. Yes, you will devour him. You shall feast upon his flesh, take his blood as your own and steal his strength and spirit. This I know. I will give you a gift so that it will be possible. Take my gift!'
A bright light blinded Genevieve and she gave herself up to it. It was not death that thrummed through her veins, but power, and she would take it. The pain began to fade, and at last she screeched.
The voice in her mind began to laugh, and she beat her powerful wings, feeling stronger than she ever had. The sun glanced off her now-shining steel feathers, an armour that she could never have dreamed of, her vision sharper and her nose filled with the scent of the small warrior. She shrieked in triumph, tearing through the sky towards her prey like a poisoned arrow.
Chapter Twelve
'Get off me!' Naomi yelled, heart in her throat as she awoke to find herself draped across Arun's chest, wrapped up snugly in his arms. 'Let go! Get off!'
Shoving at his chest and trying to kick him, Naomi found herself unable to escape, the thick, rough blanket hindering her movements. Arun's eyes snapped open and he instantly grabbed her wrists to keep her from hitting him further. Pushing her down and pinning her hands above her head, she found herself trapped. His strength far outweighed her own in this position, and she ceased her struggles, knowing it was pointless.
Anger flashed in his yellow eyes as he snapped, 'I'm not on you, woman!'
'Yes, you are!' She glared up at him, her voice high with panic as he continued to hold her down. Part of her registered that his words were correct, and until she had woken him so rudely it was she who had been resting over him, but her anger was at the boiling point and she chose to disregard the fact entirely.
He looked down at her, furious at being woken in such a way, then blinked and tutted, releasing her wrists and sitting up. Naomi, just glad to be free of him, rolled quickly away and almost fell off the side of the sleeping platform. She managed to save herself at the last second, realising her error, and grabbed the edge with her arms while quickly hooking her leg up and over the top. Now clinging on, literally a second of thoughtlessness away from the long drop to the ground, Naomi clenched her
teeth and tried to calm down. Arun's head poked over the side of the platform, and despite his concerned expression as he looked down at her, Naomi had the overwhelming urge to punch him in the mouth.
'I hope you're not going to wake up in this kind of mood every morning,' he muttered, shoving his sleep-mussed hair out of his face. 'Are you alright?'
'Fine,' Naomi growled, trying to muster the energy to heave herself back up. 'Please leave me alone.'
Arun simply rolled his eyes as though he was dealing with a petulant child. Her emotions felt unusually volatile, but her anger was receding, and that gave her small comfort. She began to pull herself back up again, still weak from sleep and shaking from the fright she had taken. Then, as though deliberately testing her, he reached down, scooped her up and lifted her easily.
'I said leave me alone!' she snapped. 'I'm perfectly capable-'
'Will you please stop shouting?' Arun spoke over her.
'Will you please stop touching me?' she quickly shot back, shrugging his hands from her shoulders as he placed her back on the platform. He quickly released her, holding up his hands in an almost placating manner. Naomi might have bought it had his face, twitching with effort to appear calm, not given him away.
'You were having a nightmare.'
'I was not!' she denied. 'I just didn't expect to find a strange man using me as a pillow.’
Even as she said it, she realised that wasn’t strictly true, either. After they had come down from the treetops, Arun had clearly been struggling with the cold, and feeling tired and chilled herself, sharing body heat had been the natural course of action. It wasn’t as though they hadn’t slept together before, after all.
'I didn't touch you,' he assured her quietly, then cleared his throat and looked unrepentant. 'But you were having a nightmare. You were cold. Freezing. It was too dark to see, and there were men screaming.'
